St. Landry democrat., 1887-06-04

luS TIC OCCdSlOll VI lllCIll, NiilSi1 "dS pISlOS
ferrous. Slavery maintained amidst tn
loudest professions of universal freedom.
Decoration Day sprang from the retro
spection of the value of the moral results 0
this last great conflict and of the example o
those who could no longer accompany thu
triumph of their country.
Flowers were made the offerings upon the
tombs of the dead, as being within the gift
of all and seasonable for the opening forth
of spring. When everything gives proof OF
it's constancy to ife-bud, blossom and
evergreen-the survivors of the war genera
ton and their children and friends go forth
with armfuls of floral offerings to say by
attestation: 1--WE lived by the sacrifice OF
these: in their death we are preserved for
gentler living, full opportunities and higher
loyalty and reverence"
The celebration of the warrior lost by
strewing flowers was, like all ceremonias of
taste and feeling started by few, but its
fitness was soon appreciated by the multi
tude on both sides of the fierce civil conflict.
The harmless offerings, fresh from nature
lap, assuaged resentment and encouraged
taste. Not even flowers grow without
knowledge and care, SO Decoration Day be-
came the birth of the sense of beauty in
many sordid heart and inconsiderate neigh
borhood.
Hard men and needless women awakened
to a consciousness of disloyalty to nature and
her consultations of blooms. He who could
not tell the name of one flower in the garden
beneath the sunhower and the rose, perhaps
realized as he took his way in the procession
OF the dead what Wordsworth had written
in the previous century:
A primrose on the rivers brim
A yellow primrose was 10 him;
And it was nothing more
Worse than this, the merely instructive
and restless life of many Americans had
| banished the name of the primrose from
! their limited glossaries. They did not know
the coleus from the weed, nor see the mani
fold uses OF taste in the sum of enjoying,
cultivating and selling.
Thirty years ago American schoolmasters
taught with heather glee the well-known
fact in history that the Dutch once had a
tulip MANIA" and in their financial
exchange ran tulip bulbs and blooms up to
such figures as railroad stocks and foreign
loans might bring. The pupils also grinned
like little ''practical'' heathens at the dense
ignorance and folly of these Dutch.
But there was to come day when orchids
and hollyhocks, orange blossoms and petu-
Mas were to sell in the United States at
prices rivaling tulips in the mania of the
so-called 'crazy Dutch" 1t is upon the
tastes and culture of men that the profitable
arts thrive and much of the railing against
luxury" and Extravaganza in the first
half of this century was the expression OF
self-satisfed ignorance blaming enjoyments
it could not understand.
In a certain town not a hundred miles
from Washington the son of a rich land
holder, seeking to say something which
should recommend him to lady, boosted
that he had never read any book. This
seemed to him to be the distinction of rare
Independence. ut is plain to be SEEM said
the lady, 'that you dislike women
80, no. he answered hastily; 81 like
ladies so much that have no time to read"
'The same could have been said by your
negro twenty years ago. remarked the in
dignant beauty.
Brusque as the latter may have been she
represented the changes wrought since Deco
ration Day. Bare is the town without its
florist now, and the land has by law set
apart day for planting trees as well.
The sister of young physician in Ohio,
rambling with him one day in wood, discov-
cred the eggs of bird.
''What kind of birds eggs are these?" she
asked.
II do not know"
"Can't you get book and find out ?''
"No. THERE'S no such book"
''No such bookp exclaimed the high-spir-
tied sister. "Then would write one"
In the sequel the brother made book, de-
striptive of every species of bird and nest in
Ohio and the sister and her mother engraved
and colored the plates.
Contrast the above with a story told of
Lord Ashburton by Vincent Nolte. The
former was then Francis Barring, son of
wealthy London banker, and was counting
his American wife, Miss Bingham, of Phila-
delphia, when his comprehensive spirit
moved him to drive through the mountains
Of Western Virginia to the far West. At
roadside tavern where he had dined he OBJ
served that his fine new carriage had been
cut and scratched in his absence by the I'M
leIIeieu NdSIdato VINO 1ouuSeu around Gue
inn.
"What savage deed !" said young Barring
ito have no other appreciation
Of beautiful thing, and the property of a
stranger, than to DESTROY it or deface it!
One of the rude savages spoke up, his SEN
sibility of such independence, as he under
stood, being wounded
We killed man yer not long ago for
talking about we-uns like thatr'
70, did your" replied the polite banker,
looking at the man. 'tAnd pray, did YOU
eat him, too?'
Theruffian's sense Of self-respect was reused
at last at perceiving that in the eyes of an
educated man he was little better than can